(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to broadcasting receiver which performs reception and record regeneration of digital broadcasting and, more particularly, to digital-broadcasting integrated receiver decoder having mass storage media in which many files with big amount of information are stored.
(2) Description of the Related Art
In digital broadcasting, it can many channelize by coding and packetizing signal with various service arrangements such as video, audio, and data, and carrying out multiplex transmission of those. About coding methods and these multiplexing methods of video and audio, there is Moving Picture Experts Group 2 (MPEG-2) which is international standardized specification.
As an example which applied such MPEG specification to digital-broadcasting system, Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) standard upon which it was decided in Europe is actually mentioned. DVB standard is widely recruited in every country in the world now as an industry de facto standard in each digital-broadcasting method of satellite/cable/ground.
Especially, with regard to multiplexing method, application extension of the Transport Stream (TS) which is multiple-signal form of MPEG-2 Systems is carried out. In TS specification of MPEG-2 Systems, Transmission format of demultiplexing information called Program Specific Information (PSI) being capable of describing structure of two or more multiplexed programs is specified, and PSI is multiplexed in the form of fixed-length packet with video, audio, etc.
In addition to PSI, at DVB, the transmission format of related information of broadcast service at large called Service Information (SI) is specified in form based on TS specification of MPEG-2 Systems and SI is multiplexed. In receiving side, user can be provided with various functions by acquiring and using these information.
Now, especially integrated receiver decoder that receives and processes such a digital broadcasting signal is called set top box or Integrated Receiver Decoder (IRD). Then, in case of digitally recording contents of digital broadcasting, the IRD can be connected to storage media, such as Hard Disk Drive (HDD) and Digital Versatile Disk Random Access Drive Device (DVD-RAM) drive unit.
Since video signal is mainly dealt with for hours in digital broadcasting, generally the contents constitutes mass data of gigabyte order, and needs reservation of sufficient free disk space which balances this beforehand for mass storage media.
However, user does not notice deficiency of free disk space, data processing for reserving free disk space, even if user notices, such as selection of object file and backup, takes time and effort, user fails in record or there is threat of deleting required file accidentally.
As mentioned above, there is a problem that specified all contents is unrecordable, if capacity value which can be beforehand used for storage media is not fully secured in conventional digital broadcasting integrated receiver decoder. It is considered to digitally recording contents of digital broadcasting on storage media, such as HDD and DVD-RAM. Moreover, generally in digital broadcasting integrated receiver decoder, information of recorded program is abundant and each of recorded files is also large.
Therefore, even if storage media with very large recordable capacity was used, when not running efficiently, usable capacity become less easily and user's request of wanting recording favorite program and watching it anytime was not able to be complied.